CHAPTER 7

"You are no man of God, Nicholas, but a fraud, and a killer. And I cannot abide being in the same village as you," Damien said.

Then he continued on his way without another word, hearing the gasps and whispers of the townspeople as he passed. It surprised him when a hand fell upon his shoulder. Stopping in his tracks, he did not turn around. For he knew that contorted old hand well.

"Damien, wait," Nicholas said. "Perhaps I was too harsh. It is evident that this morning's work has distressed you. But there is truly no need to take such drastic measures. Surely you do not mean to leave here..."

"Yeah, Nicholas, I do," Damien replied.

"You cannot!" Nicholas said.

Frowning, Damien turned. Nicholas composed himself and softened his voice. "Damien, you have been like a son to me. Believe me, boy, if this action was not necessary, I would never have..."

"But you did. It is done, Nicholas, and there is nothing you can do that would undo it, now," Damien said.

Lowering his head, Nicholas drew a breath. "I am ill, Damien. Surely you know that."

"Yeah, I know it. I have seen you growing weaker day by day, and have wished to God I could do something about it, Nicholas. But I cannot help you. And being ill, even facing imminent death itself does not give you the right to go about hanging innocents," Damien told him.

"I had no choice, Damien."

"And I have no choice now," Damien said. He turned away, having nothing more to say to the old man he had once loved. But as he walked on, he heard Nicholas continue.

"This is because of the girl, is it? This is her doing," Nicholas said.

Damien kept walking.

"Damn her," Nicholas cried. "Damn her, she will pay. I will make sure she pays!"

"She is beyond your reach now, Nicholas," Damien replied.

"Oh, do not be so sure of that, my boy," Nicholas muttered.

Damien turned then, to see the old man walking away. He did not know what Nicholas could have possibly meant by his words. But it did not matter. The girl was gone now. Dead. And Nicholas was as responsible for it as if he had pulled the lever himself. Damien would never forgive the man.

Damien went to his stark room in the back of the church, to gather his meager possessions into a sack. He would never return here again; he had meant what he said. This place had been his home for two years as he studied for the priesthood at Nicholas's feet. But that was over now.

What he had seen today and what he had felt had changed him forever. He sensed it deep inside, though he had no idea how this change would manifest. He only knew he had to leave.

He only knew that the strange beauty had touched him, touched his heart, his soul, and his life, and that he would feel that touch for a long, long time to come.

Raising his sack over his shoulder, he walked out again into the streets. People whispered and pointed as he passed. He did not care. He would have liked it if he had a horse. It was a long walk to the place where they had taken the girl and her mother's dead body. But he sensed it would be only the beginning of an even more distant journey. That the steps he took now were the first steps on the way to his destiny.

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The darkness that descended on Adira when she reached the end of that rope was a temporary one. She remembered so clearly the sudden, desperate gasp she drew, the blinding flash of white light that stiffened her body and made her fling her head backward as she dragged in as much air as her lungs could contain. The rapidly fading pain in her neck and her head. And the shock she felt as she realized...she was still alive.

She was alive! She blinked her eyes open and looked around her, and then her stomach lurched. It was daylight, morning. Still early, she guessed. She lay upon the ground with the bodies of the dead strewn around her. The bodies of hanged criminals, and those taken by the disease plague, in the area. This was the pit they had dug for this purpose. Every so often men would come there with shovels to cover over the dead and keep the place ready for another layer of victims of the plague and the gallows. But she was not dead.

She was not dead. She sat up slowly, gagging at the stench of rotting flesh, and looked around her, frantically searching for her mother. She had no idea that her mother's magic was strong enough to save them from the gallows, but it must have been, for she was alive, and her mother. No! Oh, no!

She found her mother, and her heart shattered. She lay still, her neck broken, her eyes open but no longer beautiful nor shining like onyx. They were already dulled by the filmy glaze of death.

"Mother! No, Mother, no!" Adira gathered her into her arms, sobbing, near hysteria as she held her close, and rocked her against herself. "You cannot be gone! You cannot leave me this way. Why, Mother?" But she did not answer, and so Adira screamed her question again, to the earth and the sky and the corpses all around her. "Why am I still alive? Why do I live, and not my precious Mother? Why?" But she knew she would get no reply.

Not from the dead. Not from her mother. Her spirit no longer lived in this body. She was gone. Gone, and Adira was alone.

Eventually, she sat back and looked down at her poor body, an empty shell, yes, but even so it shall not remain here in this despicable place. Not while her heart still beat on.

Gently Adira lifted her mother in her arms. She was taller, larger than her mother. But even then it should not have been so easy to carry her. Adira thought perhaps it was her grief making her strong.

She made her way out of the pit and took her mother's body into the forest nearby. And there, she scooped away the snow and scraped out a grave for her with no more than her two hands and a flat stone for a tool. Her nails were split, her fingers bleeding and throbbing with cold when she finished, but she was beyond noticing the pain. Adira buried her beloved mother there, and then she lay upon her grave and cried.